Bio-Coal Producer to Set Up In Terrace

By 250 News

Terrace, B.C.-  There will be new work in Terrace.  

The community has been hard hit by  plant  shutdowns, but it will soon be home to the world's first "bio-coal" production facility.Vancouver-based Global Bio-Coal Energy Inc.  has announced it has ordered its first commercial-size bio-coal manufacturing unit and will open a 25-tonne-per-hour production facility in Terrace early in 2011.  The announcement follows the completion of  an agreement with an energy trading company in the U.K.

GBCE Board Chairman John Bennett says the agreement “was the final piece of the puzzle needed to create a viable bio-coal industry in British Columbia and the rest of the world.”

Bio coal is produced from  waste wood bio-mass and can be used in  existing coal-fired  power plants.

GBCE, he said, has signed Memorandums of Understanding with fibre suppliers in the province. “Our target is to produce three million tonnes of bio-coal per year for the world market which would also allow us to generate some 60 megawatts of green electrical power from the gas produced as a bi-product.”

The Terace facility  is  expected to cost $30 million to build and will  create  20 direct jobs for  plant operations and maintenance.  It is likely as many as 200  more  jobs will be created in the forest service sector.

Production at the Terrace facility is targetted to begin in February or early March 2011. “We are also negotiating for other locations in the Central and Northern Interior of British Columbia providing job potential in communities hard hit by the mountain pine beetle, the downturn in the forest sector and the recession,” said Mr. Bennett. “If you spread 4600 jobs over 30 communities this translates into more than 150 permanent, full-time jobs per community.”

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